(1 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++PART MUTE++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Novi Sad, Serbia – 1 February 2025
++NIGHT SHOTS++
1. Various aerials of night demonstration ++MUTE++
2. Various of students holding flares
3. Various of protest
4. Close of stop sign placard reading (English) "The party stop is here!"
5. Mid of protest
6. Close of phones lit up
7. Student holding placard of Nobel Peace Prize (as Serbian students are nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize)
8. Mid of protest
9. Students eating
10. Various of food stands
11. Student handing out beverages
12. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Jelena Djordjevic, professor from Novi Sad University:
"I support them (students) at all protests. Secondly, I am a professor, I know exactly what is happening to them, and why they are doing this. I support them fully, I can’t believe how well they are organized, mature and good. They are just incredible, simply said. If we didn’t achieve anything so far, if we (older ones) failed so far – I think them students will solve it now, for sure."
13. Various of students
14. Tractors lined up
STORYLINE:
Serbia’s students led a mass protest and blocked bridges over the River Danube in the northern city of Novi Sad on Saturday, drawing tens of thousands into the streets to express their anger with the country’s populist leadership and to call for change.
Saturday marked three months since a huge concrete canopy at Novi Sad’s main railway station collapsed, killing 15 people. The crash on Nov. 1 sparked a wide anti-corruption movement and months of student-led street protests.
Many in Serbia believe that the collapse was essentially caused by government corruption in a large infrastructure project with Chinese state companies.
Tens of thousands of people converged on Novi Sad for the blockades, dubbed “Three Months — Three Bridges.” One of the blockades is set to extend until Sunday.
As the blockades started, entire bridges and the streets around them were flooded with people, while many more stood on the riverbanks below. Self-appointed student guards had to control the number of people walking on the bridges for security reasons.
Jelena Djordjevic, a professor from Novi Sad University, was at the protest and said the students have been "incredible."
"I know exactly what is happening to them, and why they are doing this," she added.
Roads into the city were clogged with cars ahead of the rally as people tried to reach Novi Sad from Belgrade and other Serbian cities.
Tractors rolled through the city streets as farmers drove in front of three separate student columns heading toward the three bridges and thousands of residents cheered them along the way.
University students have taken a leading role in the protests that have developed into the most serious challenge in years to the country’s powerful populist leader, President Aleksandar Vucic.
Vucic has accused students and other protesters of working for foreign intelligence services to oust him from power, while at the same time offering concessions and talks and issuing veiled threats by saying that his supporters’ “patience is running out.”
AP Video by Eldar Emric
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